While the marvellously talented game developers get back to work after the revelry that was Develop, the riff-raff that orbits around their labour has a busy few weeks ahead. As Ren Reynolds points out over on Terra Nova, there are many splendoured game-related events on the rise between now and the end of October; just in time to whet our appetites for the Christmas release rush.

Keep reading for inspiration...

Edinburgh Interactive 13 - 14 August, Edinburgh, UK [Ren is] running a panel on virtual worlds as societies vs commercial services. There will also be a talks on Virtual Reality TV and a Second Life how-to by TN alumni Dr Jim Purbrick. [Plus loads of other things, including the famous Game Screenings programme, panels, discussions and keynotes from Ubisoft, Sony and the BBC]

Digital Interactive Symposium: Edinburgh 15 August, Edinburgh, UK ...It's an industry academia mash-up™ ... We have a panel on virtual worlds and regulation from a EU perspective expect tax, communications law and other EU directives to be covered: IBM, Offcom, Jessica Mulligan, the Edinburgh Fringe festival to retire to in the evening who could want more! [For those philosophically opposed to academics looking at games, Jessica may offer some answers in her keynote, "Industry & Academia talking: what's the point?"]

State of Play V: Building the Global Metaverse 19 - 22 August, Singapore Obviously /the/ pointy headed event of the year for those in the know, locating it in Asia this year is genius. Hmm, and an EU one next year perhaps? [I'll be there, talking about research ethics in virtual worlds]

Game Convention, 23 - 26 August, Leipzig, Germany Europe's answer to the Tokyo Game Show and E3.

Austin Games Conference 5 - 7 September, Austin, TX, US People, even people that are not on the organizing committee, keep telling me that this year is the year to catch Austin, especially if you missed SXSW and don'™t know quite how cool Austin is. It'™s more tech focused than the other events listed here, but understating practice does actually come in handy sometimes.

Serious Virtual Worlds 13 September, Coventry, UK A new entry from the UK, and another very welcome event looking at the ˜serious ™ end of virtual world applications. There are few details yet, but it'™s worth keeping an eye on especially if you are EU based.

Tokyo Game Show 21-22 September (Business), 22-23 September (Public), Tokyo, Japan Quite possibly the biggest game event of the year. Seriously.

DiGRA: Situated Play September 24 - 28, Tokyo, Japan The party event of the year for Games Studies scholars, already my Hello Kitty budget is not big enough. If past DiGRAs are anything to go by this will be a huge sprawling conference with paper that range from the tepid to the inspiring.

Virtual Worlds Fall ™07 10 - 11 October, San Jose, CA, US The East Coast Virtual Worlds event goes West for the fall. The NYC event earlier this year was, for many, more of an event marking the popular arrival of virtual worlds as a medium (something many of us have known for some time) than anything else. The East Coast's version is ridiculously star-studied with luck it will tell the audience something other than things they either fail to comprehend or already know.

AoIR 8.0: Let'™s Play 17 - 20 October, Vancouver, Canada This year AoIR gets game. For the last few years the Association of Internet Researchers' annual get together has been infiltrated by a crack squad of game studies scholars intent on spreading insidious ideas like the fact that virtual communities might exist on more than just BBSs (at the first event I went to non of the virtual community panel had ever heard of virtual worlds).

Virtual Worlds Forum 23 - 26 October, London, UK More EU goodness: not content with the East Coast / West Coast ding dong that the Virtual Worlds group has established in the US, there is now a UK based event by the ˜Virtual Worlds Forum that will cover very similar issues but with a uniquely European focused, global outlook.

The virtual worlds ones are from Ren, the games ones are from me. I've added an occasional 2p in brackets []. The blockquoting facility on the blog's not working properly at the minute, just so's you know.